Will the European Union's new General Data Protection Regulation impact your business?

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Does your company do business internationally, and especially with customers within the European Union (EU)? If so, then you need to pay attention to what's happening in the areas of data privacy and data sovereignty. Big changes are underway and they could have an impact on how you manage customer information.

At the end of December, the European Commission (EC) approved the final version of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It's a massive overhaul of the EU's 1995 data protection rules (Directive 95/46/EC), which were quite out of date given the technology developments and globalization of the last two decades. The EC has been working on the GDPR since 2012 in order to strengthen online privacy rights and boost Europe's digital economy.